Fire Eagle : What is Fire Eagle?

What is Fire Eagle?

Fire Eagle is a site that stores information about your location. With your permission, other services and devices can either update that information or access it. By helping applications respond to your location, Fire Eagle is designed to make the world around you more interesting! Use your location to power friend-finders, games, local information services, blog badges and stuff like that...

What does it do?

Fire Eagle allows you to share your locations with other sites and services safely through a secure server - you are always in control. You can decide to share your location with any site that can use it, and even choose how much detail to give that application (exact point, neighborhood, city, state, country).

Is Fire Eagle free?

Yes. Fire Eagle is completely free to use. Other applications that are built on top of Fire Eagle may charge you for their services but that's between you and them!

What's a Fire Eagle? Where's the name from?

It's because we're branding geniuses with an eye for the mythic.

Alternatively, if you don't buy that, it's because Fire Eagle was the codename for the project and we loved it so much that in the end we decided to launch with it. The code name was inspired by Ze Frank's Ride the Fire Eagle Danger Day and is used with his permission. Thanks so much, Ze! Come and visit us next time you're in San Francisco.

How can I tell Fire Eagle my current location?

To start off with, you can just come to the site and type it in on the Where Am I page. But honestly, that's not that much fun. A little more entertaining are the applications that are being built let you SMS in your location or update it on Facebook.

Our favorite applications broadcast your location to Fire Eagle automatically from your mobile phone. They're the most fun because you can just turn them on and go about your business! And yet all your applications in the background can be responding to where you are in the world.

How can I use my Fire Eagle location?

There are many applications that can use your Fire Eagle location! For example, you can use Fire Eagle to update your location on your Facebook profile; or embed a badge on your blog or MySpace that shows roughly where you are. Many more are coming. If you're an engineer then maybe you could write one!

Is my location secure?

Fire Eagle will not disclose your location to any application unless you specifically give us your permission to do so. To keep your location secure, we strongly advise that you only share it with applications that you trust. If you are unsure about applications you sign up for, you can always remove their permission to access your account on the My Applications page. If you feel that your location information had been compromised, let us know immediately.

Can I delete my location information from Fire Eagle?

Yes. On your My Privacy page you can tell Fire Eagle to purge all your location information, or to hide you temporarily. On the My Applications page, you can de-authorize all the applications that read or update your location. Then they can't get access to or update your location information any more.

Does Fire Eagle keep a record of my past whereabouts?

Fire Eagle keeps only the most recent piece of location information it has received for each of the major levels it understands: Exact Location, Neighborhood, City, State, Country etc. If a new piece of "Exact Location" information comes in, then we throw away the old one. No historical record is kept of your location.

The Fire Eagle team also keeps some information about where and when updates come from so we can see how the service is being used. This information is anonymized - that is to say it's not associated with your user account in any way.

If you allow other applications to read your location then those applications could potentially build a record of your history. People who make applications are required to make it clear to their users if they want to store your location history so you can decide if you're comfortable with it or not. Be sure to read the application's privacy policy. If you're not comfortable with their policies, then you should not sign up for those applications.

We realize that users might want the ability to store their location history on Fire Eagle. If there is demand for this feature we might consider adding it.

Why is my location wrong/missing/inaccurate?

Fire Eagle takes in lots of different kinds of information and tries to turn each piece into a format that everyone can understand. However, there are limits to what we can do with some kinds of information.

For example, mobile phone applications that update your location using cell tower ids are not perfectly accurate. They can only give us general information about your whereabouts. It's also possible that we won't recognize the current cell tower you are connected to. We are continually looking to improve the service in areas like these.

It's also important to remember that the problem might be one of the applications sending Fire Eagle inaccurate information. There's not much we can do about that, except recommend that you try another application. To give Fire Eagle your exact location right now, visit the Where Am I page.

Does Yahoo! use my location information in any way?

Yahoo! developers are able to build applications and services just like anyone else - and just like anyone else they can't get access to your location without your permission.

The Fire Eagle team also keeps some information about where and when updates come from so we can see how the service is being used. This information is anonymized - that is to say it's not associated with your user account in any way.

Is Yahoo! responsible for problems that I have if my location is wrong, missing or inaccurate?

Sorry, we are not—nor can we be held—responsible for actions performed by third party applications as a result of your Fire Eagle data.

Is Yahoo! responsible for any problems that I have as a result of me sharing my location to other parties?

We're here to make it easier for you to share with people—and we have put a lot of thought into how to make you as safe as possible—but in the end we can't tell you who to trust. It's up to you to decide if you think a service is trustworthy or not. Your location is your personal data, be smart with it and read the privacy policy and terms of service of the applications you are using. Basically neither Fire Eagle or Yahoo! are responsible for how your location information will be used by other people.

People who build applications are also required to sign a set of Terms and Conditions and to follow a Code of Conduct. If you think a service is breaking these terms, then you should report that service to us immediately.

Who made this, how can I thank/hug/pay them?

Fire Eagle was developed by the lovely people at Yahoo! Brickhouse in San Francisco. We like ze frank, British sweets and artistic representations of fiery eagles, but your location lovin' is reward enough for us! If you want to talk to us about how much you love Fire Eagle, want to send us a Haiku, or if you actually have feedback - then go ahead and contact us.